LAHORE: All 39 contesting candidates are set to be elected unopposed on the same number of posts of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) with the elections being held under an order of the Supreme Court at a local hotel here on Tuesday.

Apart from the post of the president, held by Arif Hasan, elections are being held again following a legal fight which started after the POA held its quadrangular elections in February 2012.

Arif had defeated two other candidates — Akram Sahi and Qasim Zia — in those elections but the rest of the 39 candidates were elected unopposed with the consent of the general body members.

However, Nadeem Sidhu — who was a candidate for the post of general secretary — moved a petition in Lahore High Court, against the elections.

Although the LHC recognised the election of Arif as president, it left it on the POA chief to hold fresh elections on the other 39 seats if was willing to do so.

Then in another case, the Supreme Court also recognised Arif as the POA president but ordered him to hold fresh elections on 39 other seats in 75 days.

In is hoped that the elections will end a long-running dispute in the POA which brought Pakistan to the brink of IOC suspension in July this year.

However, to avoid that suspension, Pakistan’s government made a u-turn in its two-year standoff against Arif and recognised him as the genuine POA chief instead of Akram who was elected under an election conducted by the government.

There are eight candidates to be elected as vice-presidents namely Shaukat Javed (baseball), Aqil Shah (wrestling), Afzal Awan (Balochistan), Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob (volleyball), Syed Mohammad Abid Qadri (Police), Kamran Lashari (swimming), Iftikhar Ahmad Tabassum (taekwondo) and Saiyid Mohammad Sibtain (table tennis).

The vice president on the lone seat for women is Fatima Lakhani (swimming).

Khalid Mahmood, who was also elected as secretary in the February 2012 elections, is again the lone candidate on the same seat while Mohammad Shafiq (handball) is also again contesting for the seat of treasurer.

There are six seats for the post of associate secretaries and those who contesting are Ahmad Ali (gymnastics), Mohammad Jahangir (karate), Zulifqar Ali Butt, Haider Khan Lehri (softball), Idris Haider Khawaja (Punjab and Hafiz Imran Butt (weightlifting).

The only women’s associate secretary post will be filled by Veena Salman Masud.

The 20 members of the executive committee are Pervaiz Shah Khawar, Painda A Malik, Mohammad Jamil Ahmed Rana, Zainab Shaukat, Shahid Nazir, Rizwan-ul-Haq Razi, Iqbal Hussain, Ahmad Yar Lodhi, Syed Wasimuddin Hashmi, Syed Naqi Mohsin, Majid Waseem, Iftikhar Ahmed Awan, Muhammad Asghar, Waseem Ahmad, Javaid Shamshad, Rubina Irfan, Arif Saeed, Hafeezullah Khan, Fawazi Khawaja and Shakil Haider.

Published in Dawn, November 25th , 2014